Celebration Update May 2010

Over the past few months we have been moving towards changes in the structure of the congregation’s weekly pattern. We have felt led to make changes which meant drawing the current Small Groups to a close and replacing these with 4mation groups and Missional Small Groups. Sundays will have a more service based pattern, losing some of our weekend socials.

Everyone is very busy with work, family, church commitments etc. and some people find it hard to pursue interest and hobbies too. We suggested that if we are not able to take part in these activities how are we going to build relationships with people outside the church? The answer, we hope, is in Missional Small Groups. We suggested that congregation members could start hobby/interest groups under the banner of Threshold. Each should have only 3 or 4 Christians involved so that they are not too heavily Christian biased.

On March 21^st we held “Sign Up Sunday”. What a day! The leadership team did not know how many suggestions would be made for hobby/interest groups and were so excited when 17 different suggestions were made. Everyone there that day had the opportunity to sign up to lead, help, or attend a group or two and lots of people did, including the young people and TKs.

Since then a Book Group has been advertised locally and held its first meeting with 12 people attending and 5 more people not able to be there! So we hope that each group suggested will have the same success in drawing the community together.

4mation groups are a prayer and faith support group consisting of 4 people. They will meet weekly for one hour and the members of the groups will be able to share concerns, gain encouragement, but also have their faith stretched. These prayer groups will undergird our move outward into the community.

WE ARE VERY EXCITED! Please pray for God’s guidance and insight as we advertise the groups and invite friends and neighbours to become involved, and that He will bless us as we step out.

 

Alan and Ann, John and Audrey, Simon and Ann

 

There has been quite a lot of activity since our last update!

We had a great weekend away in Stathern Lodge and many of us have not been the same since (not just the frost bite!!).  It was a significant time as always and we are already planning the next one!

It was good to meet with the other local churches, and of course the other congregations, over Easter.

The Diamond Project continues to be a joy and a challenge!  Please pray that those who are part of it attend consistently.  There have been some wonderful stories and some excellent artwork is being produced.  Thanks very much to everyone who has volunteered – it has been great to be able to provide job skills workshops, cookery lessons, jewellery making and even haircuts as a reward!

We now have someone who is qualified to help us with the crèche for the Mums and babies group (a real answer to prayer) but still desperately need volunteers (on a rota would be fine) to help with a growing amount of babies!

We have had a few new people join us recently, some through the Diamond Project, which is really exciting.  However, we are feeling that this is a season that we need to really push forward in terms of seeing the power and presence of Jesus in our community, and therefore personal and numerical growth! 

Carl, Sarah, Graham, Pauline

 

Bardney update from Pete and Kath 

The news from us is that we have decided to rent a small house in Bardney (for 6 months initially) whilst waiting for our Nettleham house to sell.

Things have moved rather fast and we are planning to move on Thursday (13th May) assuming the letting agency can sort it in time. That will mean we are in the village and able to get to know the place and people.

Please do pray for our move.

We would love to have the opportunity to let folks know where we are up to and how we feel God is leading us so have set aside the evening of Thursday July 1st to gather with anyone interested to update on the situation and pray together. All are welcome – we will confirm time and venue later but please put it in your diaries for now.

Thanks for your support – it’s much appreciated.

 

Pete and Kath

 

In our last report in January we said we were entering 2010 with great excitement and anticipation about what God is going to do with us this year. We mentioned having had words over us about ‘singing a new song’ and about ‘growth’ – and that was before we heard from Duane! We started the year by claiming 2010 as a year of growth; a year when our meetings are full of new Christians; a year when we have to leave our current venue because we can’t all fit in any longer; a year when God moves in Nettleham in ways that no-one can ignore.

Then along came Duane with his word that what we do in the first 4 months of 2010 will shape the next 10 years. At the time we had no idea what that would mean for us – well we’re starting to understand it now, and I don’t think any of us anticipated how God would stir and shake us up in these first four months! More on that later.

At the start of this year we were looking to extend our outreach into the community and build on the relationships we had developed in 2009, particularly through our activities in the Black Horse.

Sundays were quite different as we launched a series of café style talks called ‘The other F words’. We advertised these around the village inviting people to come and hear people’s stories about how their faith has helped them deal with the real life challenges of Faith, Fear, Forgiveness, Finance and the Future. We had guest speakers from as far afield as Birmingham (OK it’s not that far really!) who have a powerful story to tell. We were delighted with the response we got to the series, both from our congregation and from the growing number of non-churched people who joined us over the weeks, both on Sunday and at the midweek follow up/discussion group in the Black Horse.

We rounded the series of on Palm Sunday with an excellent talk from Ed Hollamby entitled “How many Fs in Easter?” where he looked at the significance of our 5 ‘other F words’ in the Easter story. Amazingly Ed discovered that a certain well known Pizza chain had focused their holiday marketing on ‘Feaster’ - God moves in mysterious ways!

Elsewhere we have small groups (the gatherings formerly known as ‘cell’) which are active in Langworth and Nettleham. We also have a fortnightly lunch time ‘Connect’ group providing fellowship and an introduction to the Christian perspective on life for a small number of seekers; and a long established team providing Christian fellowship and input to people in the warden supervised accommodation in Church View.

Our monthly Coffee Mornings are continuing and through them we are able to support local charities and mission based activities with around £100 a month. We also raised money towards a picnic table for the new community picnic area in the grounds of Nettleham Police HQ and are delighted that it’s now in place and being used. 

  

It was great to work with the Police and Nettleham Woodland Trust to provide this facility for the village. We also hope the plaque will provoke some thought in people – as well as saying that Threshold donated the table it also contains Psalm 46 v 10: “Be still and know that I am God”.

Over the last few months we’ve been still before Him as the leadership team to seek His will for our congregation. What emerged has surprised, challenged and excited us. We put the ‘Moving Forward’ vision to the congregation earlier this month and have recently explored it with them and encouraged people to give us feedback. The vision means some significant changes to how we do church…and when we do church.

We are looking at no longer meeting on Sunday morning but moving to the afternoon to provide access to church for people who can’t make Sunday morning. Sunday would become a mixture of services, talks and events that engage with the community. This would be balanced by more structured midweek teaching and prayer and worship sessions that would run bi-weekly with the alternate weeks focussing on small group outreach. We also want to expand the amount of joint activity across the 3 churches in Nettleham and have started a short series of monthly ecumenical Transformation Praise sessions led by the Threshold Worship Team.

We’ll tell you more in the next update, but in the meantime you can find further detail on the Threshold website under Nettleham Congregation.

Please pray for God’s continuing guidance as we work out the detail and transition towards this model over the next few months.

 

Ed, Maggie, Greg, Anna & Ian

 

 

Hemingby 

Easter was once again a really special time in the village with the Easter breakfast being served to record numbers in the Village Hall. As usual, everyone who came was asked to place a flower in the cross which was stationed just outside; this location faces the intersection of roads into and out of the village and seems to bring a feeling of vibrancy and a sense of life to the day. The local, mainly Anglican, Churches on Good Friday host the procession of crosses which are carried up to the top of Red Hill about 5 miles from Hemingby. This year a cold wind was blowing which, with the three empty crosses overlooking the Lincolnshire plains, just added to the atmosphere of the occasion.

T for 6, our Sunday tea party at 6.00 pm, where we were following six sessions of a course called ‘Start’, has now finished. Whilst the numbers on the latter sessions were reduced, everyone seemed to enjoy it and one or two have asked to continue in some way later in the year. We always try to get involved with as much as we can in the village with the next main functions for us being a Safari Supper in May and the ‘Big Lunch’ on the 18^th July. Oh yes, and an O’Carolan Concert in Waddingworth Church in June! – but you’ll have to ask me if you want to know more about this one!

 

Paul and Di